Where was the Mona Lisa painted? This geologist thinks she knows
Lesson summary
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The story today is about the background of the world’s most famous portrait. Everyone looks at the Mona Lisa’s smile and at her eyes. But one geologist was looking at the background—she wanted to know, where is this? And she thinks she has the answer.
In the second half of today’s lesson, you’ll learn the English expression “stand up to scrutiny,” an excellent expression that you should know how to use.
This is lesson 681, so you can find the full lesson resources at PlainEnglish.com/681.
Mystery solved? Geologist says Mona Lisa was in Lecco
The “Mona Lisa” is the most famous portrait painting in the world. It shows an ordinary-looking woman in a three-quarter pose . She’s wearing modest clothing and no jewelry . She’s got a mysterious smile on her face and she’s looking over the viewer’s right shoulder.
A lot is known about the “Mona Lisa.” It was painted by Leonardo DaVinci from the year 1503 to 1519— a span of sixteen years. The painting was part of the French Royal Collection and was hidden from view for centuries. Napoleon briefly had it in his bedroom. Its permanent home , since the early 1800s , has been the Louvre Museum. The painting was stolen in 1931. Activists have thrown soup on it.
About ten million people visit the Louvre in Paris every year and about eighty percent of them go only to see this one painting.
For all we know about the “Mona Lisa,” there is still a lot that is not known. The identity of the model, for example, has never been conclusively proved , though many historians agree it was probably Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a merchant from Florence.
But one of the most vexing mysteries of the Mona Lisa is this: where was it painted?
It’s easy to look at the Mona Lisa and not think about the background . The background includes a lake, some limestone rocks , and a bridge . To see the bridge, you have to look very closely over Lisa’s left shoulder—the shoulder on the right-hand side to the viewer. There, you can see a stone arch bridge over an inlet in the lake .
Past efforts to pinpoint the Mona Lisa’s location have centered on the bridge. About a year ago, an Italian historian declared the background was Arezzo. The bridge in the painting had six arches , while a stone bridge over a river in Arezzo had six arches also—and they were about the right size. DaVinci was known to have visited the area.
But there’s no lake. And in the Mona Lisa, there is very clearly a lake over her shoulder, with rocks surrounding it. What’s more, stone bridges were very common in northern Italy in the 1500s. Skeptics said that you need more than a bridge to conclusively identify the background of the portrait.
DaVinci, more than other artists of his time, insisted on depicting nature accurately . He’s been called the “most scientific artist ever.” It would be strange for him to insert a lake where there wasn’t one.
Now, another historian has claimed to have pinpointed the Mona Lisa’s location. Ann Pizzorusso is a geologist and an art historian . And she focuses on the geology: the rocks, the lake, the natural environment.
She claims the location was Lecco, in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. This location, she says, has it all. The lake is Lake Garlate. The bridge is the Visconti bridge, built in the 14th century (and still standing today). And the limestone rocks of the Lecco region match the gray-white color and depiction in the painting.
Pizzorusso’s theory combines several pieces of evidence. The lake, the rocks, the topography , the bridge, and, finally, DaVinci’s own records. His notebooks show that he spent a lot of time in the Lecco region.
So is this the definitive answer?
Possibly. Time will tell if the recent analysis stands up to scrutiny over the years, but several prominent art historians and DaVinci experts have endorsed Lecco as the location.
Jeff’s take
The Mona Lisa. I have seen it in person. I was fourteen; all I remember is the crowds of people with their cameras. I have seen images of the Mona Lisa online any number of times. I confess I never noticed the bridge until today.
Even after I read there was a bridge, and even when I was specifically looking for it…I still couldn’t see it, until I found an image with the bridge circled.
That just goes to show you—you can’t know a painting unless you look at it for a very long time. In lesson 497 , I described how I looked at a single painting for an hour. This was a modified version of an art school challenge, to look at one painting for three hours. Looking at one painting for an hour is a good thing to do—so check out PlainEnglish.com/497 to hear how it went. You’ll never be able to do this with the Mona Lisa, not with the crowds, but try it with a painting at a quiet museum near you.
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